Draft 1: Nate Heiss and Rob Dougherty

Brian David-Marshall

Nate Heiss was the top seeded player at the end of day one and was looking good to follow it up with a strong day two draft. His first pick of the draft was the rising star of the format—Molder Slug. His deck was solidly green-black with multiple Consume Spirits and as many as five Tel-Jilad Exiles. He also had access to some red cards in Spikeshot Goblin and Shatter.

“The trouble I’m seeing with the deck is two Drain Life and double green spells as well as my red splash. I’m trying to get nine Swamps in my deck for the Consume Spirits. I mostly want them to kill my opponent’s fliers.”

Apparently Nate had players on either side of him dipping into green and keeping some basic cards from reaching him. “There was a green fight two or three seats to my right and I couldn’t pick up any one for one green artifact removal.”

Nate was not terribly confident about his Molder Slug surviving for very long. “There were multiple Grab the Reins at the table and at least one Terror. That could be trouble for him. The deck looks like a 2-1 deck. My mana base could give me problems—oh yeah, I could mess up too. I am hoping not to be helping you guys do any Top 8 draft coverage—I think I only need to go 3-3 to make it.”

Feeling less than confident about his deck was YMG head honcho Rob Dougherty. This was Rob’s first practical experience with the new set and he had to read many of the less known rares. “I drafted poorly. I didn’t know a lot of the pictures and had to spend too much time reading it weird cards came up. I would make bad picks in those packs. That’s what you get for not practicing.”

A couple of cards in Rob’s sideboard were Thought Prison and Lightning Coils. “I took too much time reading them but I couldn’t figure out if they were going to be good or not. I missed playables like Dragon Blood. Plus there were many other mispicks to be sure.”

Rob’s deck was shaping up to be blue-red-white, “Which I think is a good combo of colors. My key card is Pentavus. It makes my Broodstar much more playable.” Rob was lingering over his Lumengrid Sentinel. “I am strongly considering this card. I am considering going down to 16 lands with four Myr to squeeze in another spell—probably the Sentinel.

“I should have drafted the artifact lands more highly. They are good for my Broodstar and they would have made other cards in my deck—I should have been more aggressive on those.”